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While changes at home can’t solve the many environmental crises we face today, they can sure help. Through this series, we’ll explore how initiatives like curbside compost pick-up, rebates on compost bins, and efficient appliances can help families reduce their impact without breaking the bank.

Despite decades -- centuries even -- of global efforts, slavery can still be found not just on the high seas, but around the world and throughout various supply chains. Through this series on forced labor, sponsored by C&A Foundation, we’ll explore many different types of bonded and forced labor and highlight industries where this practice is alive and well today.

In this series we examine how companies should respond to national controversy like police violence and the BLM movement to best support employees and how can companies work to improve equality by increasing diversity in their ranks directly.

Compost is often considered a panacea for the United States’ tremendous food waste problem. Indeed, composting is a much better option than putting spoiled food in a garbage can destined for a landfill.

Slavery Footprint is a website, launched last week, which calculates how much slave labor is used to produce the common products in our lives. The launch of the site, which is a creation of the California-based Fair Trade Fund and the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, coincided with the 149th anniversary of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Users take a survey which asks them eleven questions about their lifestyles. The survey focuses on the following topics: number of children the use has, home ownership status, size of home, type of food user eats, personal care products, jewelry user owns, electronic devices, sporting goods, and clothing.

The questions asked include: Where do you live? What’s in your medicine cabinet? What’s in your closet? What gadgets do you own? How much jewelry do you own? Also, have you ever paid for sex?

After the user answers the questions, the survey calculates the user’s “slavery footprint” score based on where the raw materials in the products used originate and where the products themselves are manufactured.

Throughout the survey, users are hit with facts about slavery, including the State Department’s estimations that there are 27 million slaves globally. Other facts include:

“In China, soccer ball manufacturers work up to 21 hours in a day, for a month straight. Even the toughest American coaches wouldn’t ask that from their squads.”

“Every day tens of thousands of American women buy makeup. Every day tens of thousands of Indian children mine mica, which is the little sparkles in the makeup.”

A cell phone app, based on the user’s survey responses, for Android users (an iPhone app is in the works) allows someone to calculate how much slave labor is used in the products they use.

Dillon hopes the site and the app shifts “the conversation in the marketplace a little more that makes it easier for corporations to engage in [the slavery issue] in a substantive manner.”

“I wanted to see how we can help individuals use their lifestyles to end this,” Dillon said.

The point of the website and the app is to mobilize consumers to end slave labor. “I didn’t want to create another bummer calculator that only spits out bad news,” Dillon said. “I wanted to see how we can help individuals use their lifestyles to end this.”

“Success for us means that we’ve shifted the conversation in the marketplace a little more that makes it easier for corporations to engage in [the slavery issue] in a substantive manner,” says Dillon.

“This is a new way to create awareness about the issue of modern slavery and empower consumers,” said Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Gina-Marie is a freelance writer and journalist armed with a degree in journalism, and a passion for social justice, including the environment and sustainability. She writes for various websites, and has made the 75+ Environmentalists to Follow list by Mashable.com.